Yardarm returns for Hurdles tilt
Yardarm barely got a second look from punters a couple of months ago.
After some tough efforts across the Tasman the unfashionablybred former battler will be one of the best backed in the Great Northern Hurdles (4190m) at Ellerslie on September 9.
It took a champion and a dose of bad luck to deny Yardarm and fellow Kiwi Sea King in Australia’s most coveted jumping race at Ballarat on Sunday.
Wells won a third Grand National Steeplechase (4500m) after an uncompromising battle with Over The Yardarm (renamed when he went to Australia).
Wells, ridden by former Kiwi jockey Richard Cully, was left in front in the NZ$380,000 race when Sea King fell at the second last fence leaving Over The Yardarm to carry the flag.
The Kiwi-owned horse looked to be going the better but Cully rallied Wells to get home by a shorthead.
Sea King seemed the probable winner until his mishap while Yardarm cemented his future in big jumping races with his effort.
The son of King’s Chapel was left in the care of champion trainer Darren Weir for Sunday’s race after regular trainer Mark Brooks returned home to Cambridge after a stint training at Ballarat.
Brooks had trained him in his previous four races in Victoria including the Crisp Steeplechase a few weeks ago when he also ran second to Wells.
Despite going win-less in his Australian campaign, his two big race placings boosted his stakes tally to over $130,0000.
Now the horse that left New Zealand as a one-race hurdle winner after eight starts with earnings of $20,000 is on his way home.
He arrives back in Brooks’ Cambridge stable on Thursday and with his training partner Missy Browne, he will prepare the horse owned by Michael and Simon Wallace for the Ellerslie feature.
Michael Wallace, spoken farmer and a quietly horseman residing on the outskirts of Cambridge, has always had horses in his life and bred the jumper with his brother Simon who manages a large-scale dairy farming operation in Brazil.
The brothers got the racing bug from their late grandfather Bob Nolan, a part-owner of champion racehorse of the 1950’s Mainbrace, 1981 Auckland Cup winner Chimbu and Waikato Hurdles winner Crojack.
‘‘After the Northern Yardarm will have a spell and next year he can go back to Australia and do it all again and Stirling Bridge might join him.’’
Michael Wallace made the decision to send Yardarm to Victoria after he didn’t run up to expectations in the K S Browne Hurdles at Ellerslie in June after a previous second as a 56 to one shot in the Waikato Hurdles.
‘‘He didn’t go quite so well on a really heavy track at Ellerslie,’’ Wallace said.
‘‘Mark had set up in Ballarat so we sent him over looking for better tracks.’’